Top 35 Quotes & Sayings by Deanna Raybourn

To know how a character will behave in any given situation is a necessity and a gift.

One of the joys of writing historical fiction is the chance to read as much as you like on a pet subject - so much that you could easily bore your friends senseless on the topic.

It sounds ghoulish, but it would have been fascinating to be in Paris in 1789 and watch the revolution begin. I can't even imagine what the energy must have been like that year with all of that change crackling in the air.

In creating a new character, it's sometimes difficult to find a touchstone, a North Star that will always point you in the direction that character will travel.

The addition of romance in my books or mystery to a historical romance is the sauce, not the goose.

Among my favorite half-dozen topics is the field of Victorian female explorers, the intrepid women who packed up their parasols and petticoats and roamed the world in search of adventure. Some were scientists, some artists, some unabashed curiosity-seekers who simply went out to see what they could see.

If you lift the romantic element out of my plots, you still have fully formed mysteries. In the same fashion, if you pull the mystery out of a historical romance, you are left with a perfectly satisfying story.

To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.

If one has a purpose, life is bearable enough, do you not think so?

If you were a man, your ladyship, I would cordially horsewhip you for that remark.

She didn't look at me and I didn't look at her. Some questions are so direct the only way to ask them is sideways.

I am sorry " I murmured. "I know. I ought not to have threatened to beat you " he returned. He pressed a kiss to my hair. "I just cannot bear to be kept out of your life " I said into the dark. He gave a sigh. "Julia you daft woman. When you will you understand You are my life.

Without an expectation of success, one is rarely successful.

Those are facts. Are they the truth? No, for they do not tell you of the heart, and that is where truth lives.

I see only a little, lady, but I know that your fortune is as twined with his as the ivy to the oak.

....Only you mattered in that moment. Only you. And I would have done anything to save you. I would have paid any price committed any sin sold my very soul to do it.

After a moment, he turned sharply to me. 'Are you quite all right?' 'Yes, perfectly. Why do you ask?' 'Because I have just called you contrary and you did not bother to contradict me. I thought you might be ill.

You are curious and quick, you have a deft mind, and for some unaccountable reason, people tell you things -- useful things.

I stepped closer still. He closed his eyes again and covered my hand with his own. 'You smell of violets. You always smell of violets,' he said. 'You've no idea how many times I have walked these moors and smelled them and thought you were near. On and on I walked, following the scent of you, and you were never there. When I saw you in the hall tonight, I thought I had finally gone mad.

I matched my heated tone with one of pure ice. "I believe I did attempt to relate to you the facts of my calls and you interrupted me with a rather magnificent display of temper much as you are doing now. If you do not have all the facts of the case perhaps you have no one but yourself to blame." Brisbane opened his mouth and shut it with a snap. His mouth remained closed but I could hear him muttering under his breath. "What are you saying?" "I am counting. To one hundred. In Cantonese.

One is not born English without knowing how to converse easily about the weather.

I will make arrangements for you and Portia to return to London the following day. I will be closing up the house. I am leaving England for a while." "For how long?" I asked him, determined to keep my composure. "Until I am quite recovered from you," he said evenly. "When will you return?" "Never.

I hesitated for all the right reasons. And I accepted for all the wrong ones.

Life is too uncertain... You must seize happiness where you find it.

I would give up everything for you, Giulia" I smiled at him gently. "But you must understand. I should never want a man to give up anything for me. I should want him to feel in winning me he has won the whole world.

I adored history, not the dry dates and boring battles, but the stories and the people who populated them.

Fate is by far the greatest mystery of all.

They have different accents in America " Brisbane smiled. "Just as we do here." I waved a hand. "They all sound alike to me.

When the wind is right and the cloud is gone, you can see down this road as far as Darjeeling," I told her. "But it is a long and difficult road, full of perils, and if a traveller on foot were to look at the length of it, his spirit would be overcome and he would sit down and refuse to go any further. You must not look to the end of the road, Portia. Look only to the step in front of you. That you can do. Just one step. And you will not make the journey alone.

Oh, yes. I mean to marry him. But not because I want him to give me a life. I want to marry him to share the life I already have. The difference, I think you will find, is a significant one.

But this is a thing that I know--to live with fear is not to live at all. A man will die every moment he is afraid.

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She left me then, surrounded by my extravagantly simple finery and I sat for a long time, uncomfortable both with the person I had been and the person I was finally becoming. Caught between the two of them, I felt rather lonely, as one often does with a new acquaintance.

Now I was more certain than ever of my decision. I could not love a man who did not love Jane Austen.

What virtue is there in a man who demonstrates goodness because he has been bred to it? It is his habit from youth. But a man who has known unkindness and want, for him to be kind and charitable to those who have been the cause of his misfortunes, that is a virtuous man.